JAMAICA Football Federation (JFF) presidential candidate Raymond Anderson says proper record keeping is one of the ways he promises to bring transparency to the body should his bid be successful.

Anderson now serves as the JFF’s first-vice president to Michael Ricketts, whom he will be challenging in the election. After officially announcing his candidacy earlier this month Anderson said one of the critical issues affecting the JFF is a lack of transparency, which he said has affected its relationship with its stakeholders including players, sponsors, the teams’ fanbase, and the media.

One of the concerns many journalists have regarding the JFF is poor communication from JFF officials when contacted for discussions on topical issues. Another is difficulty accessing records related to the JFF’s national teams at each age group, and specific statistics related also to national players.

The latter is a concern the JFF is aware of, especially as it was raised in April when the federation launched its new website. General Secretary Dennis Chung told journalists gathered at the media launch of the site that it will facilitate better record keeping, but there is still no page related to team or player statistics on the website.

Anderson describes the JFF’s record keeping as leaving much to be desired.

“Our archive is weak,” he told the Jamaica Observer recently. “That library of the JFF, if you go to it now, it’s an issue. If you don’t know where you’re coming from, you can’t know where you’re going.

“That data, we’ve asked for it several times — for the youngsters to the senior teams. The managerial department, which will be a part of the technical department [should he win the election], will ensure that they keep the library and the data up to date.

“We need to have record keeping, not only for the players but everything. You might ask for something relating to the inventory and there’s a problem with it also. We will ensure that we have the department, which is already there, being more active to ensure that they’re data-driven. We need to get there — and that’s a part of transparency.”

But former Cricket West Indies President Dave Cameron, who is a member of Anderson’s campaign team, says that the media should play more of a role in official record-keeping. He says it is an opportunity for revenue.

“The cricket angle is that there is an ESPNcricinfo website,” Cameron told the Observer. “They’re monetising people’s data. It’s something I’ve had a challenge with because, the truth is, they’re really paying nothing for it. They’ve gone around the world and taken everybody’s data and stored it so now they’ve become the one that houses everything. So, any data you want on cricket, you go to ESPNcricinfo. When you go there you have ads and there’s an opportunity for them to make money from it.

“While the JFF should be putting out this data, there’s an opportunity for the media houses to get involved, and store, and monetise it.

“Data is king, and when you write your stories you need data to back up what you’re doing so it’s an opportunity as well as it’s something the JFF could be looking at.”

Although no date has been set by the JFF for its general election, its constitution says there must be one by November. The constitution was revised at last year’s congress, moving the number of delegates allowed a vote from 13 [each parish confederation] to 56. Anderson said with this change he decided to challenge Ricketts as it increased his chance at getting a fair shot of snatching the majority vote.